


Incipient

by breaumonts (AnonymousCatastrophe405)



Series: I'll Fall With You [1]
Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 10:29:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16808866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousCatastrophe405/pseuds/breaumonts
Summary: “I think I need to start packing,” she says.She watches a million different things happen on his face.  Shock, excitement, disbelief, joy, fear, hope.  His hold on her hand tightens a bit.  “Do you mean it?”She shrugs, and then she laughs.  “I don’t know.  Yes.”  She laughs again, harder.  “To hell with it.  I’m in.”





	1. Impetus

**Author's Note:**

> **Incipient** \- _(n.) beginning to exist or appear, in an initial stage_

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, let me get this straight: you want to My Fair Lady me?”
> 
> “Basically. Or maybe it’s Miss Congeniality you, or Anastasia you? They’re all the same basic premise, yeah?”
> 
> “Yeah.”
> 
> Maxwell makes it sound so simple: let his fancy noble family pay her way to a fancy foreign country she barely remembered from history class to compete against fancy noble girls and hopefully get to live out that Kate Middleton-esque fantasy of marrying an actual, real life prince. And a crown prince at that, who will someday be king and make his wife a queen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Impetus** \- _(n.) The force that makes something happen or happen more quickly_

“So, let me get this straight: you want to _My Fair Lady_ me?”  
  
“Basically. Or maybe it’s _Miss Congeniality_ you, or _Anastasia_ you? They’re all the same basic premise, yeah?”  
  
“Yeah.”   
  
Maxwell makes it sound so simple: let his fancy noble family pay her way to a fancy foreign country she barely remembered from history class to compete against fancy noble girls and hopefully get to live out that Kate Middleton-esque fantasy of marrying an actual, real life prince. And a crown prince at that, who will someday be king and make his wife a queen.

Lisette’s knees are liquefying, so she sits down on the arm of the couch, her hands resting limply in her lap. She takes a deep breath, then another, and another, and Maxwell doesn’t seem to mind as his proposal sinks in. He occupies himself with his phone, or at least makes a good show of it as he covertly glances around the cramped living room, at Day’s bedroom door, and, like a gentleman, ignores the laundry basket of clean laundry on the coffee table and her unmade bed through the door beside him.  
  
_This can’t be real_ , she thinks, _It can’t actually be happening_. The week she’s had is the stuff of Lifetime movies, from the moment the man currently standing in her apartment and his friends walked into the bar to the decision, so unlike her, to show them a good time while they’re still in New York. The last five days have been filled by their company and the stores she can’t afford, the bars and clubs she can’t get into, the restaurants that take months to get reservations at, all opened up to her by their diplomatic status and deep European pockets and noble pedigrees. 

She’s not sure quite how much time has passed when she finally finds her voice again. “What’s the catch?”   
  
Maxwell doesn’t respond, so she glances up at him and sees him trying to parse out her meaning, that despite his nearly flawless, nuanced English, his grasp of it is imperfect, secondary or tertiary. She amends her question. “Um. The–there’s more to this than you’re telling me, right?”  
  
“Oh. Well, yeah,” he admits. “It would be too easy if there wasn’t, and we can’t have that.”

“Of course,” she agrees faintly. “I assume you have something to gain if I say yes, right?”  
  
“Power and prestige, mostly.” He rolls his eyes and shrugs, his tone flippant and dismissive. “Not for me personally, but for my house. My family. My brother has been interviewing girls for weeks and weeks to find someone to sponsor, because we don’t have any sisters to put forward, and none of these women are living up to his expectations. I think you’re worth the risk, no matter what he has to say about it.”  
  
“Bullshit.”  
  
His brow furrows. “I’m sorry?”  
  
“That’s bullshit,” Lisette repeats. He’s been flirting with her all week, and she’s encouraged him, but this is… something else entirely. “Why haven’t you said anything about this before?”  
  
“Liam is, uh,” Maxwell pauses for a moment and mumbles to himself, “ _Obuzet, μαγεμένο, enchanté_ …” He snaps his fingers and points at her as if she’s provided the word he’s looking for, though she hasn’t. “Smitten! Liam is smitten with you. He’s never been so taken with a woman before. I think, if you come with me and get to know him over the next few months, you might feel that way about him, too.” 

Under her shock, she’s annoyed by his neglecting to mention her agency in this. “That’s awfully presumptuous.”   
  
“He’s the best of us,” Maxwell says. His earnestness dampens her irritation, but only slightly. “And he’s about to have to pick a wife that won’t ever make him as happy as he’s been this week. He deserves that, and you’ve made him happy, and I don’t think I’m wrong thinking he’s made you happy, too.”  
  
Weakly she protests, “You don’t know me well enough to think that.”  
  
But he’s not wrong. It both exhausts and infuriates her, the sensation of being known itching at the back of her neck like a shirt tag. She looks at her laundry basket for a long, long moment, until her eyes unfocus and the polka dots on one of her blouses blur. She blinks it away. “What am I supposed to do with my life?”  
  
“Your… life?”  
  
“My things,” she says, gesturing at everything and nothing. “My apartment, my roommate. My jo–actually, no, forget my job, but still. My life is _here_ , Maxwell, I can’t just leave it indefinitely in hopes I never need to step back into it here. That’s insane.”  
  
Maxwell nods slowly. He isn’t so outrageously out of touch that he has more money than sense like Tariq, and while he’s not as down to earth as Drake, he’s closer than she would’ve expected a lord of anywhere to be. His hand skims over part of her bookshelf, and he seems to be taking in the room in more detail than he had when he arrived. There’s a sad, understanding look in his eyes and a little crease between his brows Lisette hasn’t noticed before, and when he becomes aware of the crease he schools his expression into a neutral one and rubs at the spot. It doesn’t seem like vanity, though, and it intrigues her that he’s not as shallow and thoughtless as he seems.

“I didn’t think about any of that,” he admits quietly. “I shouldn’t ask you to abandon your life like this. It’s not right. But I really do think you could have a chance, Lisette. I really do.”

She nods, looking at her hands to avoid looking at him and feeling guilty. “You might be right, but I–I can’t do this. I’m sorry.”  
  
The floor creaks as he moves to sit on the coffee table, closer but not too close, not crossing the line that joining her on the couch would. 

“Is there anything I can say?” he asks, almost a little desperate. “Anything to convince you to come with me?”  
  
“Probably not.” She shrugs and starts picking at her cuticles, until Maxwell reaches out and takes her hand, stopping her. She wants to cry, but she won’t, not in front of him, not like this, not because he’s a relative stranger and he’s offering her one of her dreams with only one massive string attached, not because she wishes she wasn’t too afraid to throw all her caution to the wind and go with him. 

He tightens his hold on her fingers, urging her to look at him. Again, she gets the sense she’s seeing through some glamour, some trick of the light that’s prevented her from really seeing him before. He has freckles, she realizes, partially disguised by his French Riviera tan and not as plentiful as her own. There’s even one in one of his irises, a fairly large spot of hazel marring the blue in his left eye. She hadn’t noticed it all week, but it’s impossible not to look at now.   
  
“Can we still be friends?” he asks.   
  
She sniffles and rubs her thumb over his knuckles. It feels like they’ve known each other longer than a week, and against all reason, she’s hopelessly fond of him. “Of course. I’ll miss you, all of you.”  
  
He smiles. “But mostly me, right?”  
  
“Obviously. You’re the one in my apartment, aren’t you?”  
  
“Can I tell you something?” She nods. “I’ve wanted to come up here all week.”  
  
A laugh bubbles out of her. “No, really? I couldn’t tell from all the passes you kept making at me.”  
  
“Not like that!” he says, the light flush of his cheeks belying the laughter in his voice. “I mean, I’ve never been in an apartment before. I’ve always wanted to know.”  
  
“Does it live up to your expectations?”  
  
Maxwell looks around. “I’d have to do a thorough investigation, but it seems up to… snuff, right? That’s the expression?”  
  
Lisette is charmed by his fumbling over idioms. “One of them, yeah.” 

“It’s small,” he notes.  
  
“It’s big for this neighborhood.”  
  
“It’s old.”  
  
“Now you’re one insult away from starting a war.”  
  
Maxwell amends, “I meant to say it’s cozy and has a lot of character.”  
  
“That’s better.”

They’re still holding hands, but Lisette thinks Maxwell might be as reluctant to let go as she is. When he finally does and he stands to leave, he sounds sad and tired and is already complaining about needing to pack for his flight home tomorrow night, they hug one last time at the door and make promises to stay in touch Lisette doubts they’ll be able to keep half a world apart. When he’s gone, Lisette sits on the arm of the couch for what feels like hours, her arms remembering the shape of Maxwell’s body and the scent of his cologne clinging to her hair.  
  
How strange it is to miss someone you only just met.

How strange it is so feel guilty for not agreeing to go with him to Cordonia, that she regrets not agreeing to it immediately.  
  
She wishes Day was home instead of visiting his parents in the Midwest. She wishes Naomi was easier to get in touch with.   
  
Her phone buzzes on top of the laundry basket and she picks it up, seeing a notification that mp_beaumont started following her on Pictagram. She taps on the notification to follow him back when she sees his most recent update is a picture from earlier this week when she’d taken the guys to the Met. She has no idea what the caption says, but the tags give her a good idea: _#missyoualready #bestvacationever #wcw_. In it she’s copying the pose of The Vine and smiling at the viewer. At Maxwell.  
  
It’s the happiest she’s looked in a picture in two years.   
  
She scrolls to another picture of Drake looking rumpled and unamused over a plate of bacon and hashbrowns and Liam laughing into a coffee mug. The location tag is displaying The Four Seasons, as it does on several other pictures in Maxwell’s feed from the last two weeks, and she’s on her feet and gathering her jacket and purse before she realizes what she’s doing. 


	2. Depaysement

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Drake points at Maxwell around his glass. “These women have been preparing for this their entire lives, Maxwell. What makes you think Carignan even stands a chance? Who’s gonna help her keep up with them?”
> 
> “We are.” Drake makes a sound of glorious disdain, and Maxwell frowns. “Not you. Bertrand and I. If anyone can pull this off in a month, it’s him.”
> 
> Drake rolls his eyes and looks out the window, checking out of the discussion.
> 
> “Thanks,” she whispers, so only Maxwell can hear. “For having faith in me.”
> 
> He smiles and whispers back. “It’s not all altruistic, trust me. I want you getting that crown more than anyone.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Depaysement** \- _(n.) When someone is taken out of their own familiar world and into a new one_

_She’s such a beautiful dancer #goals  
_

_she was so graceful! Her lines and extensions are amazinggg_

_She was like the next Gillian Murphy with that hair!  
_ _Ikr? Stunning_

_I saw her in the Red Hot 100, she’s so hot  
_ _She was in that Chainsmokers video Trinity Dance Complex did, too. What a babe!_

_Lisette had no business being bumped to principle. She wasn’t that good, and she was too young for a part like that_

_She’s too skinny, ballerinas are gross : /  
_ _GTFO!!!!! #thinspo #skinny #pale #dancer #ballerina #proana_

_It’s such a shame she choked, she could’ve been prima someday_  
_She died?! What happened???_  
_No, she choked during her premier as a principle for the ABT and they let her go. I haven’t heard anything about her since :(  
_ _That’s so sad, poor thing!_

_WE MISS YOU LISSY! <3_

“How are you feeling?”

Lisette looks up from her phone, almost shocked to be spoken to after being so absorbed in her the comments on her videos on her YouTube channel. She thought it might be a good idea to pick a few out to show Bertrand if he has any doubts about her poise or her grace or her ability to handle the pressure of what she’s about to step into on his family’s behalf, but she forgot about the comments and fell into the trap of reading them, sliding deeper into doubt with each scroll.

Across the small table, Maxwell was tapping away at his own phone, but he’s studying her now.  
  
She sighs and sets her phone face down on the table. “Honestly? I’m terrified.”  
  
Drake snorts. She’d nearly forgotten he was even here. He’s been asleep for most of the flight, and when he’s been awake he’s ignored both her and Maxwell in favor of staring sullenly out the window with a tumbler of whiskey in hand.  
  
“You’re going to get eaten alive at court,” he mutters, still looking out the window. He doesn’t seem to remember he’d been perfectly nice to her for the last two weeks, and she resents him for it almost as much as she resents the fact that his accent is the most familiar one she will probably hear for the next three months. 

“Jesus, don’t scare her,” Maxwell says.

Lisette scoffs, and Drake looks over at her, one dark eyebrow raised. “I worked in theatre in Manhattan. I can handle a bunch of spoiled, catty drama queens just fine. Bitches are the same everywhere.”  
  
Maxwell chokes on his coffee and jerks forward to avoid spilling any on his clothes, while Drake looks unimpressed. Lisette grits her teeth, disliking him more with each passing second as Maxwell scrambles to sop up the mess before it drips on him.  
  
“You can talk a big game all you like,” Drake says, “But this is a different league altogether. I’ve seen girls like you come and go at court, and it never ends well. Not for them, not for the royal family, and especially not for Liam.”  
  
“Lisette is not some crown-chaser!” Maxwell snaps. It seems to surprise Drake enough to deflate him a bit, and Maxwell glares at the table and the coffee soaked napkin in his hand. His grip on the cloth goes from tight to loose as he reigns himself in. “How stupid do you think I am? I wouldn’t have asked if I thought for even a second that she was. Give me some credit.”

Drake points at Maxwell around his glass. “These women have been preparing for this their entire lives, Maxwell. What makes you think Carignan even stands a chance? Who’s gonna help her keep up with them?”  
  
“We are.” Drake makes a sound of glorious disdain, and Maxwell frowns. “Not _you_. Bertrand and I. If anyone can pull this off in a month, it’s him.”  
  
Drake rolls his eyes and looks out the window, checking out of the discussion.  
  
“Thanks,” she whispers, so only Maxwell can hear. “For having faith in me.”  
  
He smiles and whispers back. “It’s not all altruistic, trust me. I want you getting that crown more than anyone.”  
  
She squeezes his hand. “But you know it’s not why I agreed to this.”  
  
It helped make the decision in the end, sure, but really it was the promise of seeing Liam again, of getting to see the world on someone else’s dime, how everything Maxwell was offering her were things she’d been dreaming of since she’d been young, that she’d given up on when her life crumbled underneath her on that stage two years ago. It was finally, just _once_ , doing the stupid, foolish thing and saying to hell with all her caution and fear to surrender herself to someone more impulsive and less afraid.  
  
Maxwell turns his hand to squeeze hers back. He knows. “Back to how you’re feeling: why are you terrified?”  
  
“Isn’t it obvious? I’ve never met a duke before.”  
  
“You’d never met a prince before, either,” Drake interjects. “Now look where you are.”  
  
“Ignore him,” Maxwell says. “I do. Don’t let his title scare you, Bertrand is just a grouchy, sometimes insufferably boring person. I know all his terrible secrets, and I promise, he’s not half as intimidating as he seems. If he starts getting to you, remember he used to wear footie pajamas and pick his nose like every other kid, and his voice cracked for almost two whole years.”  
  
Drake barks out a laugh. “Christ, it did, didn’t it?”

“I always think of it when he’s yelling about something,” Maxwell says, almost fondly. He puts his hand over his heart with mock seriousness and pitches his voice as low as he’s able to in what Lisette can only guess is an impression of his brother. “It helps lessen the blow, Mr. Walker, I assure you.”

Drake covers his face with his free hand and shakes with silent laughter. Lisette’s missing part of the joke, but it makes her laugh anyway.

She can hardly imagine them being related, given what she knows about Maxwell. She had trouble finding current pictures of the duke online; everything she saw was dated several years ago, and most of the pictures were typically unflattering press rag photos that made it hard to tell what he actually looks like. She withdraws her hand from Maxwell’s and leans forward on her elbows. “Are you two close?”

He hides it well, but there’s a flicker of something complicated and pained across Maxwell’s face. He leans back against his seat with a sigh. “We used to be. He has all kinds of obligations now that he’s the duke, and I’m just his handsome, useless brother now. We don’t, uh, spend much time together anymore.”  
  
“He means he’s the spare, and he’s always off fucking around while Bertrand runs their family’s duchy,” Drake says.   
  
Maxwell sniffs indignantly. “It’s hardly my fault he refuses to delegate anything to me.”  
  
Drake catches Lisette’s eye and mouths _it is_ at her. She already feels deeply biased in Maxwell’s favor, but she can see why he might not be an ideal second in command to anything. In a way, he reminds her of the little boys in her kinderdance classes that have ADHD and are always restless and mercurial and talkative. She wonders if he’d be well served with a prescription for Adderall.  
  
“Bertrand’s a control freak,” Maxwell goes on. “He’s big on courtly protocols and is going to grill you on them as often as he can, which is going to be constantly. It’s going to be terrible, but by the time the social season starts no one will ever know you weren’t born into the nobility.”

* * *

As the driver opens the car door for Maxwell, Lisette sees a man with dark hair standing at the top of the stairs leading down to the garage, and immediately feels her palms start to sweat. Maxwell gets out before her and offers her his hand as she carefully slides out of the cool, dark leather interior and into the blinding daylight and midday heat. She can smell the ocean nearby when the wind blows.  
  
Bertrand is taller than she’d expected. And older, though she knows there can’t be more than a handful of years between him and Maxwell.  
  
Maxwell whispers to her, “Are you ready?”  
  
She smiles weakly. “As I’ll ever be.”  
  
He squeezes her hand once before releasing her and turning to his brother. “Bertrand! You didn’t have to greet us. Not that I don’t appreciate it–”  
  
“You’re late,” the duke says. His voice is every bit as low as Maxwell’s impression of it from the plane. “You were supposed to be home a week ago.”  
  
Maxwell jogs up the first few steps. “I swear I sent you a text about it.”  
  
“Did it not occur to you to call?”  
  
“Uh. No? So many things happened, Bertrand–”  
  
Bertrand holds his hand up, silencing his brother immediately as his eyes fall on Lisette. “Who is this?”  
  
“The answer to our prayers!” Maxwell comes down the steps a bit to take Lisette’s hand again, pulling her up to Bertrand. She steels herself the way she would walking into an audition as they ascend the staircase. “This is Lisette Carignan. I’ve brought her with me from New York. Lisette, this is my brother, Bertrand Beaumont, Duke of Ramsford.”  
  
Sensing her cue, she curtsies, even though she feels stupid doing it, no matter how much Maxwell assured her it was the right thing to do. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Your Grace.”

Bertrand looks at her for a long, long moment. His eyes are light like Maxwell’s, which surprises her because she’d somehow expected them to be dark, and up close she can see the resemblance between them. They don’t exactly look alike and if she didn’t know they were related she might not even notice it, but there’s something in the lower half of their faces that’s similar, though Bertrand has a certain dignity about him his younger brother lacks, and Maxwell’s features are softer and still boyish, almost delicate, despite his age. 

Bertrand’s face goes pale and he turns to Maxwell. “My god, what have you done to her?”

“I’m sorry?” Maxwell asks as Lisette’s stomach sinks. 

“What did you do?” Bertrand hisses, ignoring her completely. “I tolerate your gallivanting around and sleeping with commoners so long as you don’t bring them _into our home_.”

Maxwell flinches as though struck and turns red. He avoids looking both his brother and Lisette in the eye. “It’s not like that…”

“If you think, for a second, I will tolerate a bastard–”  
  
“It’s not like that!” Maxwell insists. “Come on, Bertrand, I’m not a complete idiot.”

Maxwell looks horribly embarrassed, and Bertrand about a second away from having an aneurysm as they fall out of English and into Cordonian. Lisette immediately loses the thread of the conversation beyond sensing it’s about more than just her. Aside from a bizarre instinct to defend Maxwell to him, all Lisette can think of while looking at Bertrand is that he’s no different than every demanding director she’s ever had, someone who expects more than perfection from the people he feels responsible for, and even more from the people he cares about. 

“Excuse me.” The brothers stop bickering to look at her, Bertrand with an incredulous eyebrow raised and Maxwell both relieved and apprehensive. “Not to be rude, but I’m sure you know what Americans say about people who _assume_ things.”

Maxwell’s eyes nearly bug out of his skull. Bertrand merely blinks, affronted but too in control to show it, as Lisette lifts her chin defiantly.   
  
Seconds tick by as she and Bertrand stare each other down. A bead of sweat rolls down the back of her neck and into her blouse. Insects hum and distantly she hears the crash of the ocean. Maxwell is looking between them like he’s watching a tennis match, unsure of whose side he should be on and instead trapping himself in the awkward middle.

“Well,” Bertrand says, after what feels like an eternity. His eyes narrow, considering her, before he straightens his lapels. “Let’s continue this inside and out of this blasted heat, yes? And you two can explain to me what exactly is going on, and what you want from me.”  
  
“That sounds lovely,” Lisette says, rather primly. Maxwell is still goggling at her, stunned or impressed, and she shrugs at him as Bertrand turns to lead them up into the sprawling, impossibly large estate up the slope. 

She was a soloist with the most prestigious ballet company in the world, once. It takes more than a bossy, arrogant European in designer clothes to rattle her.


	3. Tarantism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on. Dance with me.”
> 
> She laughs and allows him to pull her out of her chair. “How did you do that?”
> 
> “Do what?” 
> 
> “Know what would cheer me up,” she says. “You don’t know me that well yet.”
> 
> “Ah, but that’s just it.” He taps the tip of her nose and she playfully swats him away. “Yet. Yet, I can work with. Yet, I have something to work toward.”
> 
> She grins. “You’re very optimistic.”
> 
> “Someone in this house has to be.” He takes her other hand, holding them both in his own between their chests. “Lisette, you’re going to be amazing. You are amazing. Don’t let anyone – not even Bertrand, and especially not you – get in your head and convince you you won’t be. Okay?” She looks at the floor, so he squeezes her to get her attention again. He raises his eyebrows, waiting for her affirmation.
> 
> She looks up at him through her eyelashes, then looks at the floor between their feet again and smiles gratefully. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Tarantism** \- _(n) The urge to overcome melancholy by dancing_

It’s the middle of the night, maybe closer to the smallest hours of the morning, but Maxwell doesn’t want to look at the clock. It’s been hours since he came to bed and tried to fall asleep, and he’s managed nothing but brief stretches of minutes and, frankly, it’s starting to get old. Annoyed and tired and bored and itching to move, Maxwell sits up and gets out of bed.

He paces. He stretches. He refuses to look at his phone because there won’t be a way to avoid seeing the time if he does. He paces some more. As quietly as he can, as he always does, he leaves his room to walk around the house.

It’s long since stopped feeling like a museum now that most of the statues and paintings are gone, but now it feels haunted by the ghosts of Beaumonts past, by old glories and distant memories, long-dead ancestors as disappointed in the state of their once great house as dear old Barthelemy always was in his younger son. **  
**

It’s spotless, mostly, the dust thin and the air fresh and well-circulated, but the house has an echo it never used to. That’s the hardest part: used to. It pains him to remember a time, some twenty-odd years ago, when he was walked through the house by Bertrand or their mother or a nanny to keep energetic, clumsy Maxwell from knocking into anything priceless. It occurs to him that the only really priceless things the Beaumonts had were never on display, and they’re the things that have been the hardest to let go of, things that can’t be bought back once there’s money in the coffers again and no liens against the estate. 

As he passes through the downstairs study, the one with the shrine to Barthelemy’s life accomplishments and those of his wife and sons, a light in the ballroom catches Maxwell’s eye and makes him pause mid-step. Had he forgotten to turn it off when they finished Lisette’s table etiquette lesson earlier?   
  
He thought he had, and then he hears a sound, a dull thud, followed by a rapid tapping, a muffled curse. Suddenly his restless night time wandering and boredom are forgotten, and now with purpose, he moves to the ballroom doors and slowly pushes them open, half expecting one of the few remaining house staff or Bertrand tidying up, and instead startles Lisette so badly she barely suppresses a yelp as she stumbles out of an arabesque, her pointe shoes thunking on the dancefloor as she catches her balance.   
  
She yanks her headphones down around her neck and presses her hands to her chest. “Christ, Maxwell, you scared me!”  
  
“Sorry!” He steps into the ballroom and pulls the doors shut. “I saw the light on, I thought–What are you doing up so late?”  
  
“Couldn’t sleep.” She sweeps strands of her loosely braided hair out of her face. “You?”  
  
He shrugs. “Just one of those nights, I guess.”   
  
“I, uh, hope it’s okay that I’m in here.” She points at the ceiling, even though her bedroom is on the other side of the house like his. “I was too anxious up in my room.”  
  
“Please. You live here, it’s fine.” He looks around the ballroom, noting that she moved a chair from one of the tables, still set from her lesson earlier, to the edge of the dance floor. “You want some company?”  
  
“That would be nice, yeah.” She steps into open fourth position and lifts her arms into third before dropping them again with a frown. “I can’t believe this is all over tomorrow.”  
  
Maxwell sits in the chair she moved. “Over?”  
  
“The build-up part, I mean.” Lisette turns away from him and walks across the ballroom floor, her pointe shoes _tak tak takking_ as she moves to the center again. “The season kicks off tomorrow.” The sound of her movement echoes through the room, just loud enough to have drawn his attention from the study, but not enough to reach the bedrooms upstairs. Feet apart wider than her shoulders, she lifts herself onto her toes and places her hands on her hips. “I get to see Liam again, meet these other girls, probably make an ass of myself in front of the entire court–”

“I don’t think you’ll make an ass of yourself,” he interrupts. Even in the dim light, the glare she casts over her shoulder is withering. “I mean it. You’ve picked up a lot over the last month, Lisette. It’s impressive.”  
  
She smiles, just for a moment, before her brow knits into an anxious frown again. “That’s more to do with you and Bertrand than me.”  
  
“You’re not giving yourself enough credit.”  
  
“You’re giving me too much.” She taps at the big wireless headphones around her neck, and the tinny sound of classical music wails softly from them as she starts to dance. Her movement is clearly choreographed, but he can’t hear the music that well from across the room to guess what it might be from. She’s a little stiff in spite of the graceful, elegant flutter of her movements across the floor; she’d been a professional and danced in front of crowds of hundreds, once, so he doesn’t think she’s disturbed by his presence.

“You’re nervous,” he says after a while.  
  
“Whatever gave you that idea?” she asks drily. Her voice is breathy, but her movement never falters.   
  
“It’s perfectly understandable.” She laughs just once, ha! like a cartoon character. “It is! Bertrand’s nervous. Hell, I’m nervous.”  
  
“You both have a lot riding on me,” she mutters as she dances past him. “I don’t blame you.”  
  
They lapse into silence again as she whips herself into an effortless pirouette, her long red braid whirling around her like a whip. It’s been more than fifteen years since Maxwell switched from ballet to hip hop, but muscle memory is a funny thing and his calves ache as they recall the exact clench of muscles that make dancing pointe possible. Lisette might not be able to pop or break, but her fluidity is something Maxwell has never been able to achieve, and he knows from dancing with her for the last month that she’s deceptively, impossibly strong despite her slenderness, and that her frame is unshakeable and solid when she leads.   
  
The music swells to its conclusion and Lisette folds herself elegantly the floor, still balancing on her toes. Maxwell claps, and her face is flushed from more than exertion when she looks up.   
  
“You’re really talented,” he says, because it’s true.   
  
“Thanks.” She walks back towards him, the effortless confidence of her dancing replaced by embarrassment. “I was going to be a principle in my company, you know.”  
  
“You never told me that.” Maxwell stands to offer her his chair and takes another to the edge of the dance floor for himself.   
  
Lisette shrugs and collapses into his vacated chair, bending to unlace her shoes. The low back of her leotard exposes the dips and ridges of her musculature and all sorts of interesting constellations of freckles along her spine and a birthmark under the blade of her left shoulder. Maxwell is incredibly glad she doesn’t catch him looking at her. A stupid, impulsive part of his brain that’s loud and used to being obeyed shouts that it might like him to kiss that birthmark sometime. He mentally and literally shakes the thought out of his head, wondering what brought it on, and sits down beside her.   
  
“It was a few years ago. It doesn’t matter now.” She sighs heavily, sitting up and slouching against the chair as she starts picking at her cuticles. Her voice is bitter, just barely loud enough for him to hear. “It was my own fault, anyway.”  
  
Normally, this is where he would make a joke or direct her attention elsewhere, but something about the late hour and being the only two people awake in the estate, and probably for miles around, keeps him from doing so. Instead, he takes her hand to stop her picking, but doesn’t let go. One corner of her mouth twitches into a smile, even though she fights it like she wants to stay sad when he rubs his thumb over her knuckles. 

The house is quiet, and the night is quiet, and for once he’s not the only person awake and restless in the middle of it all.   
  
“You know, I’m probably a little–a lot rusty,” he says after the moment passes. Her eyebrows raise as he stands without releasing her hand. “I probably can’t keep up with you, but I want to try.”  
  
“Huh?”  
  
He tugs at her, just a little, and smiles. “Come on. Dance with me.”  
  
She laughs and allows him to pull her out of her chair. “How did you do that?”  
  
“Do what?”   
  
“Know what would cheer me up,” she says. “You don’t know me that well yet.”  
  
“Ah, but that’s just it.” He taps the tip of her nose and she playfully swats him away. “Yet. Yet, I can work with. Yet, I have something to work toward.”  
  
She grins. “You’re very optimistic.”  
  
“Someone in this house has to be.” He takes her other hand, holding them both in his own between their chests. “Lisette, you’re going to be amazing. You _are_ amazing. Don’t let anyone – not even Bertrand, and especially not you – get in your head and convince you you won’t be. Okay?” She looks at the floor, so he squeezes her to get her attention again. He raises his eyebrows, waiting for her affirmation.  
  
She looks up at him through her eyelashes, then looks at the floor between their feet again and smiles gratefully. “Okay.”  
  
“Good.” He releases her to moonwalk a few paces away, and she chuckles. “Now, do you American ballerinas only dance choreography or can you freestyle?”  
  
“Oh, we can freestyle, alright.” She advances on him with a smirk. “Is that how you Cordonian nobles do it?”  
  
“It’s certainly how _I_ do it.” He waggles his eyebrows.  
  
She laughs and sweeps both hands in front of herself at him. “Show me what you’ve got, Maxwell. Not ballet, and not breaking. Something we can both keep up with.”  
  
Maxwell points finger-guns at her approvingly. “Good idea. Music?”  
  
“You wanna do the honors?” She twists her arm to tap offer him her phone, and he leans down to tap at the screen, out of her ballet playlist and to a mix merely titled MOVE. He’s only passingly familiar with most of what he sees as he scrolls until he sees something that appeals to him. He’s glad what plays has a beat they can immediately start getting into.   
  
Unconsciously, they’ve started to sway together, almost mirroring each other’s movements as they get a sense of how to move as one without Bertrand observing them or classical music backing them up. It’s sloppy, but it’s fun, and that’s exactly what she needs it to be. It’s not how they danced together at Kismet when they found each other in the dark on the crowded dance floor, and it’s not how they’ve been dancing together for the last month under Bertrand’s critical eye while they taught her courtly dances she’ll need over the next several months.   
  
They don’t touch much, just brushes and grazes here and there, all in neutral places like hands and backs and shoulders, except when she communicates she wants him to support her weight for a dip or when he wants to try to lift her. It’s more intuitive, more aware of each other and anticipating what they’re going to do and trying to make their different disciplines make sense together.   
  
After a while, she giggles. “Did you ever see any of those dance movies? Like _Step Up_? Did they ever get released here?”  
  
“Oh no,” Maxwell gasps. He actually stops moving after her to cover his face with his hands. “You’ve killed it. This was a good thing we had going here, and you’ve _ruined_ it.”  
  
A strange thrill goes through him as Lisette wraps her hands around his wrists to force him to look at her. Her eyes are bright with mirth but her expression is serious. “But the real question is: are you mad because that’s exactly what we’re doing right now, or because I reminded you those movies exist?”  
  
Maxwell’s groan the loudest thing in the house, almost a scream, and Lisette tries her hardest to shush him while fighting back her own laughter. “God, I don’t even know!”   
  
“Shh! You’re gonna wake Bertrand!”  
  
“He’s the least of my problems right now, Lisette!”  
  
She wails and leans into him for support. She has to press her hand to her mouth to try and stifle herself and only succeeds in making herself snort, which sets them both off on another peal of helpless laughter.  
  
“What the hell was that?”  
  
“I’m laughing! You made me laugh!”  
  
“It was so cute,” he chokes out, “Like a little pig.”   
  
“Oh my God, Max!” Lisette shoves him, desperately trying to stop herself from doing it again and failing miserably.   
  
Maxwell is laughing so hard he has to bend over to support himself on his knees, and Lisette leans on his shoulder. It takes them several long moments to sober up because they can’t look at each other without being set off again, but when they do it’s wiping tears from their eyes. The song has changed from the one he’d picked to rap, which surprises him because it’s not the sort of thing he’d expect a formerly Catholic ballerina to listen to.  
  
“Oh, wow, I haven’t laughed like that in a long time,” she admits once she’s caught her breath.  
  
Maxwell presses a hand to his stomach. “I think I can skip the gym after that.”  
  
“Same.” She fans herself with her hands. “I think I have my six pack back.”  
  
The stupid part of his brain whines, petulant and intrigued, and he hates it more than he’s ever hated anything. Lisette doesn’t seem to think much of his audible swallow, or that he needs to clear his throat to not sound hoarse. “Do you still want to dance?”  
  
“A little, but it is really late…” her voice trails off as she weighs the cost of continuing to stay up.   
  
It was already well past midnight when he got out of bed, and they should try to get some sleep before driving to the palace tomorrow, but it’s the last chance they’ll have to spend any time together like this before being under the constant scrutiny of the entire court for the next three months. Tomorrow he has to step into his official role as her sponsor and she out of the proverbial frying pan of Bertrand’s disapproval and into the fire of being House Beaumont’s bid for Liam’s bride.  
  
When Lisette looks back at him, it’s with a mischievous, hopeful smile. “I saw this lift on Youtube I want to try.” She squeezes his bicep. “You’re probably strong enough for it. If you don’t mind losing more sleep with me?”  
  
Maxwell exhales a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “Lady Carignan,” he says, bowing slightly and offering her his hand. “I would be honored to stay up with you.”


End file.
